5 ms·

> Second, nerds can do a perfectly effective job pushing women out of the profession without being aggressive or having social power. We do a lot to gender the

> Second, nerds can do a perfectly effective job pushing women out of the profession without being aggressive or having social power. We do a lot to gender the profession in ways that has little to do with the work. Think about all the references to hiring "cowboy coders" and "code ninjas." We emphasize hiring the lone gunman coder who learned to code in their basements, while the job actually is highly collaborative and team oriented. If the casual use of innocuous phrases such as those are "pushing" women out of the software development profession, then I would conclude that either: a.) women, on average, have fragile psyches and avoid working in rough-and-tumble environments where phrases such as "cowboy coder" (the horror!) are tossed around. They need an environment where speech is tightly controlled so as not to upset them or scare them off, or b.) an overwhelming majority of women tend to not be interested enough in software development as a career to pursue one. I'm going with b.

tptacek 9y ago
So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS, despite the fact that those other fields are often more intellectually rigorous and challenging and despite the fact that most of those fields are dominated by computers and software --- in fact, many of them are even more challenging from a CS perspective than computer science itself as it is practiced in the industry, which is mostly about connecting database rows to HTML forms --- but despite all that, you're convinced that women just "tend not to be interested enough in software development"?
- naasking 9y ago
  What other STEM fields are you referring to? Using CS as a tool to solve other problems is a different proposition than the study of CS itself. I don't see why they'd have to be connected in people's minds in the way you're suggesting. For instance, undergrad math enrollment is almost at gender parity, but postgraduate math study has similar gender ratios to CS. This is because you need an undergraduate degree for teaching and other careers, and so the interest in pursuing math for maths sake appears to be much lower among women. This could be for a number of reasons, some of which might be fixable to improve ratios, but some may be innate. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Wrong on both counts. Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs (and way higher than CS undergrad degrees) --- this despite mathematics being among the small number of heavily gender-segregated STEM fields. Further: almost nobody practicing computer science in the industry has a PhD. There are, believe it or not, places where having a doctorate is frowned on. For the degree that actually matters --- the bachelors --- math has as you say something approaching parity. Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM.
    - naasking 9y ago
      > Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs It drops from ~50% to just under 30%, where CS degrees hover between 18-22%. Frankly, that's not "substantially higher than CS". > Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM. No one is making that claim except people like you who love tearing down absurd straw man arguments. Please read more carefully and stop making assumptions.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        You've ignored one argument in favor of hinging your entire argument on a double-digit improvement in women's participation in mathematics not being "significant"?
        naasking 9y ago
        What argument have I ignored exactly? Your CS PhD argument has bearing on anything that I've said as far as I can see. Finally, it's not a double-digit improvement, but of course we can quibble endlessly over how meaningful that exact number is, but it's irrelevant. The number is still piss poor compared to undergrad enrollment, indicating that women don't pursue higher math degrees for various reasons. The link I initially provided cited evidence that they're interested in undergrad maths because of opportunities it provides outside of pure maths. It's not apparent that similar opportunities exist for CS undergrad degrees, which would be one explanation for the disparity in undergrad math and CS. So I'm still not seeing how anything you've said bears on this at all. Certainly graduate maths have more women than does CS. So what? What exactly do you think this proves in light of the above?
- rhapsodic 9y ago
  > So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS... That statement is so broad as to render it utterly meaningless. I don't doubt it applies to medicine, for example. But does it apply to automotive or mining engineering? And even if it did apply to every non-CS STEM field, that still would not preclude the possibility that women, as a group, are simply not as interested in CS to the same extent men are.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Earth sciences. Chemistry. Biochemistry. Math (for Christ's sake). Astronomy. Statistics. Evolutionary biology. Neuroscience. Molecular biology. All double-digits better (some have actual parity) in female representation than computer science, which shares its gender disparity distinction with only two other (generally defined) STEM fields: ee/mech engineering and physics. Nobody is disputing that women are less interested in working in CS than men. They clearly are. What is obvious to some of us is that the reason for that disinterest is that the field is hostile to them. It is hard to explain otherwise how something like three times as many women might obtain post-graduate mathematics degrees --- a pursuit that is more intellectually demanding and less lucrative than computer science, which routinely pays six-digit salaries to people immediately out of school simply to wire database rows up to HTML tables.
    - rhapsodic 9y ago
      > They clearly are. What is obvious to some of us is that the reason for that disinterest is that the field is hostile to them. Oh yes, hostility manifested by half-century old magazine ads or phrases like "cowboy coder." If they're allowing their career paths to be altered by innocuous stuff like that, or what a teacher might have told them, I don't think they want it that badly. There are no qualified women banging on the door of the software development profession demanding to be let in. The door is wide open to them, and it always has been.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        No, sorry, I'm not going to play Calvinball. You directly challenged a statement I made upthread, and now that I've taken the time to clarify it, you've decided to respond to an earlier comment I didn't write. If you'd like to keep discussing this with me, you're going to either have to rebut what I said, or acknowledge it.

tptacek 9y ago

So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS, despite the fact that those other fields are often more intellectually rigorous and challenging and despite the fact that most of those fields are dominated by computers and software --- in fact, many of them are even more challenging from a CS perspective than computer science itself as it is practiced in the industry, which is mostly about connecting database rows to HTML forms --- but despite all that, you're convinced that women just "tend not to be interested enough in software development"?

naasking 9y ago
What other STEM fields are you referring to? Using CS as a tool to solve other problems is a different proposition than the study of CS itself. I don't see why they'd have to be connected in people's minds in the way you're suggesting. For instance, undergrad math enrollment is almost at gender parity, but postgraduate math study has similar gender ratios to CS. This is because you need an undergraduate degree for teaching and other careers, and so the interest in pursuing math for maths sake appears to be much lower among women. This could be for a number of reasons, some of which might be fixable to improve ratios, but some may be innate. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...
- tptacek 9y ago
  Wrong on both counts. Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs (and way higher than CS undergrad degrees) --- this despite mathematics being among the small number of heavily gender-segregated STEM fields. Further: almost nobody practicing computer science in the industry has a PhD. There are, believe it or not, places where having a doctorate is frowned on. For the degree that actually matters --- the bachelors --- math has as you say something approaching parity. Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM.
  - naasking 9y ago
    > Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs It drops from ~50% to just under 30%, where CS degrees hover between 18-22%. Frankly, that's not "substantially higher than CS". > Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM. No one is making that claim except people like you who love tearing down absurd straw man arguments. Please read more carefully and stop making assumptions.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      You've ignored one argument in favor of hinging your entire argument on a double-digit improvement in women's participation in mathematics not being "significant"?
      - naasking 9y ago
        What argument have I ignored exactly? Your CS PhD argument has bearing on anything that I've said as far as I can see. Finally, it's not a double-digit improvement, but of course we can quibble endlessly over how meaningful that exact number is, but it's irrelevant. The number is still piss poor compared to undergrad enrollment, indicating that women don't pursue higher math degrees for various reasons. The link I initially provided cited evidence that they're interested in undergrad maths because of opportunities it provides outside of pure maths. It's not apparent that similar opportunities exist for CS undergrad degrees, which would be one explanation for the disparity in undergrad math and CS. So I'm still not seeing how anything you've said bears on this at all. Certainly graduate maths have more women than does CS. So what? What exactly do you think this proves in light of the above?
rhapsodic 9y ago
> So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS... That statement is so broad as to render it utterly meaningless. I don't doubt it applies to medicine, for example. But does it apply to automotive or mining engineering? And even if it did apply to every non-CS STEM field, that still would not preclude the possibility that women, as a group, are simply not as interested in CS to the same extent men are.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Earth sciences. Chemistry. Biochemistry. Math (for Christ's sake). Astronomy. Statistics. Evolutionary biology. Neuroscience. Molecular biology. All double-digits better (some have actual parity) in female representation than computer science, which shares its gender disparity distinction with only two other (generally defined) STEM fields: ee/mech engineering and physics. Nobody is disputing that women are less interested in working in CS than men. They clearly are. What is obvious to some of us is that the reason for that disinterest is that the field is hostile to them. It is hard to explain otherwise how something like three times as many women might obtain post-graduate mathematics degrees --- a pursuit that is more intellectually demanding and less lucrative than computer science, which routinely pays six-digit salaries to people immediately out of school simply to wire database rows up to HTML tables.
  - rhapsodic 9y ago
    > They clearly are. What is obvious to some of us is that the reason for that disinterest is that the field is hostile to them. Oh yes, hostility manifested by half-century old magazine ads or phrases like "cowboy coder." If they're allowing their career paths to be altered by innocuous stuff like that, or what a teacher might have told them, I don't think they want it that badly. There are no qualified women banging on the door of the software development profession demanding to be let in. The door is wide open to them, and it always has been.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      No, sorry, I'm not going to play Calvinball. You directly challenged a statement I made upthread, and now that I've taken the time to clarify it, you've decided to respond to an earlier comment I didn't write. If you'd like to keep discussing this with me, you're going to either have to rebut what I said, or acknowledge it.